Michigan police: No ID on body parts in sewer

Friday

Mar 15, 2013 at 3:34 PMMar 15, 2013 at 3:35 PM

Body parts found in a Detroit-area sewer in December came from a woman, but not the same woman whose partial remains were discovered in a nearby community's sewer line during the summer, police said Friday.

AP

Body parts found in a Detroit-area sewer in December came from a woman, but not the same woman whose partial remains were discovered in a nearby community's sewer line during the summer, police said Friday.

A DNA analysis of the two fleshy pieces found Dec. 20 by sewer contractors in Warren determined they belonged to a white woman, Police Commissioner Jere Green said at a news conference. However, he said, the woman's identity is not known.

"We are investigating this as a homicide until the evidence takes us in a different direction," Green said.

The gruesome find of the pieces, which measured about 4-by-4 inches and 1 1/2 inches thick, is eerily similar to the discovery of body parts last summer in Sterling Heights, The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens reported (http://bit.ly/10QSerh ).

On Aug. 15, 10 fleshy parts approximately the size of a softball had become snagged on a platform used by workers about 60 feet beneath the road. An autopsy determined the parts belonged to a heavy-set white woman, and some of them had portions of a tattoo.

A check of FBI databases did not yield matches for the DNA of the body parts found in the two cities, and missing persons reports also have not provided clues.

"It's an unusual case," Green said. "There is no investigative blueprint how to solve this."